On the 13th Sunday after Pentecost there are three assigned readings from the 3-year lectionary series including Proverbs 9:1-6 (Wisdom’s house); Ephesians 5:15-20 (Be filled with the Spirit) and John 6:51-58 (Jesus is the living Bread). The text chosen to apply is John 6:53, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.’”
This passage has been one of the most discussed in regard to whether or not it is a reference to the Lord’s Supper. Those who think it is point to the phrases of “eat the flesh” and “drink His blood.” Where else does that take place except in the Lord’s Supper? However, those who disagree with that, point out that if the reference is to the Supper, then those who have not received the Supper have no life in them!
Not surprisingly, the distinctions between Law and Gospel are helpful in resolving this issue. For those who live under the Law, they imagine that they have to DO something in order to be saved. Therefore, the Lord’s Supper becomes their way of becoming saved. However, the Gospel reveals that God and He alone gets the credit for our salvation.
Therefore, to “eat the flesh” and “drink His blood” is something that God can do apart from our cooperation. A few Sundays ago we heard from Jesus Himself that the will of the Father was TO BELIEVE in Jesus Christ. Since such faith brings LIFE, it is therefore Biblical to speak of faith as the agent through which we are receiving that flesh and blood.
The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament much like baptism for those who came to faith as adults. While they have already received the forgiveness of sins through faith alone, baptism becomes God’s means of assuring them that they personally have received the forgiveness of sins. So also, while faith alone is synonymous with eating the flesh and drinking His blood, God in His infinite wisdom has tied that same promise not just to our faith but also to His work in providing us with the true body and true blood of Jesus Christ in, with and under the forms of bread and wine.
Name:Tom Baker
So it seems that you say that it may be referring to the Lord’s Supper but that the Lord’s Supper is not the issue but faith is. Similar to “unless you are born of water and spirit” would not exclude someone that has not been baptized but is a promise. Am I correct?
My wife struggles with the idea of an adult who after coming to faith should be batized. I know that batizism is a reference point of assurance for one’s salvation, but I just don’t know how to explain to were she can understand it.
As to Steve’s statement about Jesus’ words to Nicodemus being taken the same way as “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you”, I would not agree. For note the ending of Jesus’ statement, “he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5).
I take the kingdom of God to be that new kingdom Jesus refers to is at hand. That new kingdom is not one of circumcision and ceremonial laws but one of baptism and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost.
It is NOT that the Old Testament believers are not going to be in heaven; it is that they clearly were not a part of the kingdom of God that comes about through water baptism and in which their bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. That did not occur in the Old Testament times.
In regard to Anonymous of 9/11/06 who asks about explaining baptism as assurance, I usually make the following comments. It is clear from Mark 16:16 that it is not necessary to be baptized in order to be saved. Faith alone is all that is needed. However, in baptism the believer receives a promise from God that she has personally received the gift of the forgiveness of sins. In that way, we can look back at our baptism as the only evidence we have apart from faith that we are indeed a child of God. Without baptism, one has to rely on one’s faith and that is tenuous indeed.
Baptism is to salvation as the legal adoption papers is to a child who has been adopted. The child no longer just has to trust the parents that she has been adopted; she now has objective evidence outside of her trust that she truly is adopted.